The Uninvited Guest

As world leaders gather in St. Petersburg to discuss the fragile global economic recovery, one uninvited guest is poised to crash the party and make a whole lot of noise: the Syrian crisis. As proof of the use of chemical weapons is gathered, dead bodies continue to pile up and the threat of a regional conflagration involving Israel, Iran and Iraq rises, the Syrian civil war will be the elephant in the room at the Russian G20 Summit and might very well overtake the economy as the focal point of discussions, thereby changing the nature of the organization by osmosis.

Up to this point, global security matters have been the “jurisdiction” of the G8, not the G20. Aside from an informal meeting of the G20’s Foreign Ministers in Mexico in February 2012, the organization has refrained from expanding its mandate. But the ongoing war in Syria, the East versus West deadlock over rogue states and the threat they pose as well the economic disruptions coming from the Middle East make it now painfully obvious that the world’s great powers, some of which have been playing the Cold War game in the past three years, must now come together, agree to a solution and carry it out.

Russia’s reluctance to play the new multipolar game and its bad habit of falling back to Soviet-style foreign policy of Western fear-mongering, UN vetoes and arming rogue regimes has been ridiculously puzzling. In fact, if there was a country which could have made a strong and swift difference and increased its standing through a proactive role, it would have been Russia.

Obama’s scheduled one-on-one meeting with the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping will certainly aim at finding common ground with China for them to at least abstain vetoing a UN Security Council resolution, and its secondary aim is certainly to make Vladimir Putin isolated – the Snowden affair being a convenient excuse to avoid a larger discussion on foreign policy.

In the past 24 hours however, Putin has changed his tune to something more reasonable and pragmatic, echoing the United Nations’ Ban Ki Moon, shifting from drastically opposing any action on Syria to possibly endorsing a strike at the Security Council if the proof is made public and actually adds up – which is balanced position, all things considered. The pressures from the diplomatic back channels must have been intense.

Hosting the G20 is a moment for prestige for a country, a moment to shine. But for Vladimir Putin, it is his last window of opportunity for a certain time as a global statesman, to build bridges and play a constructive game and get Russia to step out of the shadow of the USSR, embrace multilateralism and play a meaningful role in the global community.

Stay tuned and watch how the US, Russian and Chinese discourses on Syria change in the coming days - it might just herald the changing nature of the G20.

*** 15:30 EDT UPDATE ***

I have just received this Google Alert out of Reuters:

G20 foreign ministers to attend Russia summit to discuss Syria
Source: Reuters - Tue, 3 Sep 2013 02:59 PM

PARIS, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from key G20 member states will convene on the sidelines of this week's meeting in St Petersburg to discuss Syria, France said on Tuesday.

"(French) Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will travel on Sept. 5 and 6 to meet foreign ministers present at the G20 summit, notably those of the United States, Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey," Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot told reporters.

A French diplomatic source said the ministers, who do not usually attend G20 summits, would meet to specifically talk about the Syria crisis and discuss political perspectives. (Reporting By John Irish, editing by Mike Peacock).

Source: http://www.trust.org/item/20130903145324-c5h6c

Battleground Syria

Yesterday, US State Secretary John Kerry dramatically rose the tone towards Syria. His declaration to the press was but an inch short of a declaration of war towards the Assad regime, in the light of last week’s alleged chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus.

As US Navy ships and British air forces take position in the Mediterranean, it is rather clear that as soon as chemical attacks are indeed confirmed, the responsibility for them assigned, the airstrikes from a limited, US-led coalition will strike at Syrian governmental and military targets, first with cruise missiles to take out the anti-air and Syrian Air Force targets (roughly 500 combat aircraft), then likely mop up the remaining targets with coalition aircraft.

A just war?

The conflict, which started in March 2011, has caused at least 100,000 deaths and through it all, Syria has become an abysmally failed state. Once responsibility for the chemical attacks is proven, it will strengthen an already strong case for an international military intervention under the norm of the responsibility to protect which three pillars state that:

1. A state has a responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. 

2. The international community has a responsibility to assist the state to fulfill its primary responsibility. 

3. If the state manifestly fails to protect its citizens from the four above mass atrocities and peaceful measures have failed, the international community has the responsibility to intervene through coercive measures such as economic sanctions. Military intervention is considered the last resort.

If it is proven that it has used chemical weapons against civilians, the Syrian state will have crossed a point of no return in international law. While tens of thousands of innocent civilians have already died throughout the civil war, many of these deaths are perhaps considered “normal” in a state consumed by intense, violent internal strife and utter chaos. However – and perhaps unfortunately – the deliberate use of weapons of mass destruction on civilians constitutes that “red line” which call for a swift international intervention, because the Syrian regime might have confirmed its predatory intentions towards its own populace and that world powers cannot let the use of those weapons be without severe repercussions.

Opening up Pandora’s box

While on paper, the Syrian situation does seem to justify an intervention in accordance to international norms and international law, the devil, as always, is in the details.

First off, we must consider the unintended consequences of our actions. For nearly three years now, the Greater Middle East has been in a state of flux, instability or revolution. Bring down a dictator and you bring up the Islamists, destroy the devil you know and then deal with the devil you don’t know. In the West, we looked at Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen with great hope, only to find out it was more like 1848 and not 1989. Even if the Assad regime was to be obliterated, the thought of a continuing civil war, renewed sectarian violence and an altogether worse fate for Syria can’t be too far in the minds of the Western decision makers, which stretch far beyond the impact of the usage of chemical weapons.

Secondly, there is the danger of regional escalation, or spillover, because of Syria’s geopolitical situation. With the conflict between Shia and Sunni Islam militias and splinter groups kicking in ever high gear throughout the Middle East, the Israel-Palestine deadlock, the Egyptian counter-revolution, the instability in Turkey, the Kurdish independence movement, the renewed strife in Iraq, the tensions over the Iran nuclear program, the Western pullout from Afghanistan, the potential for one explosive situation to set another one ablaze is very high. The question then, is not so much “should we intervene?” but rather “do we dare to intervene?”

Knock, knock, who’s there?

“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Who exactly would benefit from a Western military intervention in Syria?

If it is decided that Western powers must strike at Syria, they must accept that they are directly providing help to Al-Qaeda affiliates fighting Assad’s regime, and that in the medium to long run, military support combined with the weapons which have been delivered to rebels in the past months will benefit the dreaded groupings whose philosophy brought down the World Trade Center and caused the Western powers to occupy Afghanistan for more than a decade. In short, helping topple Assad now might help global terrorism grow in the years to come.

Perhaps this commenter on the Toronto Star’s webpage put it better than I could:

“There is little to choose between the Baathist butchers of the Assad regime and the Islamist fanatics of the "rebels". Syria has became a proxy for the war between the Shiites of Iran and Hezbollah and the Sunnis of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabis and the world has a choice of horrible or terrible, and the poor Syrians and Lebanese caught in the middle lose whatever happens.”

Russia on the defensive

In conclusion, aside from President Assad, the person who stands to lose the most in the Syrian crisis is Vladimir Putin. While the Russian president has always been fairly nationalist, skeptic of Western intentions and longing for the good old Soviet influence days, ever since his return to office for a third term, he has squandered many opportunities for Russia to play an influential and helpful role in shaping international events, the pinnacle being the Syrian crisis. By playing the ying to the US’s yang whatever the conflict, his attempts at asserting Russian independence have come across as pandering to his home audience. A Western strike without the approval of UN Security Council on Syria would likely be the most serious political rebuff to Russia, and could possibly send the nation in a period of reevaluation of its foreign policy.

The Great Game

The hot-zones today. How many G20 countries can you count in their vicinity?

The current state of relations between the American and Russian governments will no doubt remind some of the Cold War. Sharp tongues, covert operations, proxy wars, threats of using force – it’s all there, albeit, in a much less intense fashion. It is also a complete waste of time.

Last June, when it hosted the G20 summit in Los Cabos, the Mexican government did not convene a follow-up meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers, even though it had been tentatively put forward after their first informal gathering last February. It is unfortunate because it could have been used to discuss frankly, openly and face to face the current challenges to international security that are posed by North Korea, Iran and most recently, Syria.

While hoping for some kind of major agreement on upcoming steps in all three scenarios might have been far-fetched, the world could have used some sense of unity in the broadest sense from the G20 nations’ chief diplomats. Instead, we are privy to yet another “Great Game” between the US-Russia and China troika, played out in diplomatic circles, through covert operations, weapons shipments and UN Security Council vetoes, while our world becomes increasingly dangerous.

Syria is the last remaining “active” fire of the Arab Spring and is quickly catching up to Libya in terms of bloodbath. However, because of the country’s strategic location – at the very heart of the least stable region of the globe – the conflict has been at the very centre of a tug o’ war between the US and Western nations and the Russia/China strategic alliance.

Certainly, Bashar Al-Assad bears most of the blame for the extreme escalation of the conflict. But Russia and China, fearing a repeat of the “over-interpretation” of UNSC resolution 1970 on Libya have consistently vetoed any bold proposal against Syria. Russians went as far as attempting to deliver Mi25 attack helicopters and missiles to Al-Assad’s regime earlier this summer, and are likely politically flexing their muscles by deploying amphibious assault ships and hundreds of marines in their naval base at Tartus shortly.

On the other hand, news broke this past week that the US President Barack Obama authorized clandestine support to the rebels by the CIA through humanitarian, logistical, communications and financial help which likely explains the growing progress they have made in the recent weeks. Official sources claim no arms are being sent by the US; this may or may not be true. And of course, financial help begs the question: what is stopping the recipients of US funds from acquiring weapons with that money? What is truly worrying about the Syrian rebels is the growing legions of foreign fighters affiliated to Al-Qaeda joining their side. In the advent of a rebel victory, what will happen to them? Could US help be in fact diverted to help a new generation of Al-Qaeda terrorists?

While East and West throw an encore of the Cold War, Iran coldly calculates its next move with its nuclear program, sending its Basij and financing Hezbollah to support the fledging Al-Assad. When Damascus finally falls, no real distraction will remain in the Middle East, and all eyes will look to Teheran. What some call the “Syrian Uprising” is but a prelude to the next chapter: a confrontation with Iran.